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THE DAY ON
TRACK
Once again in this 2023 season, the quickest driver in qualifying was Max
Verstappen, but the Dutch champion will actually have to start, not from
pole position, but from sixth, as he has to take a penalty for using his
fifth gearbox of the season (one more than the four allowed). Starting from
the number one slot on the grid will be Charles Leclerc, whose Q3 time of
1.46.988 was 820 thousandths of a second slower than Verstappen’s.
Completing the front row on Sunday will be Sergio Perez, third quickest
today in 1.47.045.
The weather was the main talking point today with rain falling all day until
just before the start of qualifying. In the weekend’s only free practice
session only wet and intermediate tyres were used, the latter also featuring
in Q1. For the start of Q2, drivers also attempted to go for a time on
intermediates, but large sections of the track dried out quickly, prompting
the drivers to switch to Softs, which were then used through to the end of
Q3.
The Pirelli Pole Position Award was presented to Max Verstappen by Mario
Isola, Pirelli’s Director of Motorsport.
SIMONE BERRA – CHIEF ENGINEER
“It was an interesting day and useful to understand the behaviour of the two
types of wet weather tyre, while it was impossible to gather any data as far
as dry tyres for the race were concerned, given that slicks were only used
in qualifying.
The most used
tyre was the intermediate, which behaved well, both when there was a lot of
water on track, as was the case in free practice and Q1, and when the track
was drying quickly, as in Q2. It was also possible to get a sufficiently
accurate idea of the crossover time from intermediates to slicks (around
110%), while that between the extreme wets and the intermediates is much
harder to assess, given that they were used in the first part of free
practice when teams and drivers were having to get an understanding of the
track conditions. From what we could see, we can say that the Extreme Wet,
which remember, since this year’s Monaco Grand Prix, are not pre-heated,
responded well in terms of warm-up, even with the relatively low
temperatures of around 20 °C for both air and track. The Soft also
immediately provided good grip in qualifying, even though the track was
clearly not in optimal condition.
Tomorrow’s forecast is definitely not encouraging, in terms of rain which
could have a significant impact on the Sprint format, while for Sunday it
seems the conditions should improve. Whatever happens, it looks like we can
expect two days of surprises and excitement.” |
